Public sector partners and solutions shine at the Microsoft Enterprise Partner Summit in Cannes

In my job helping partners build business with Microsoft in the Public Sector in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), I always look forward to meeting partners to learn more about their latest successes and to learn how the public sector can take benefit from their innovative solutions.

I have just come back from the sunny South of France; where hundreds of Microsoft partner business leaders gather in Cannes for the annual Enterprise Partner Summit (EPS) for the EMEA region. This is the 8th year I have attended this event, and more than ever, I have come back inspired and excited about our partners and how we can jointly help customers solve public sector challenges.

During the two days of the summit I listened to great keynote speeches and had inspiring meetings with partners. I attended the keynote by Lynne Stockstad, General Manager, Microsoft Worldwide Public Sector, who spoke on how Microsoft and partners jointly can support more public sector customers with their requirements. Microsoft expects to expand the reach in the public sector over the next years, partly due to cloud computing and partly due to the increasing pressure for more efficiency and improved citizen services during these difficult economic times. Lynne gave some great examples of public sector solutions delivered by the Microsoft partners. One such example, the “Lifelens” solution, enables doctors to quickly analyse blood tests in a mobile environment and it left me with a good feeling on how IT can benefit the public sector.

The real value of this summit for me was, as always, to meet with our partners and to learn about their strategies and priorities for our joint work with public sector customers.

Many of our partners are increasingly focused on cloud-based solutions including those I met with: Logica, Capgemini, Innofactor, Getronics, and several others. They all offer public sector some of the most innovative cloud technologies to the public sector like portals, productivity, self service solutions, cloud-based open data solutions, and much more.

Health partners were well represented at the summit, and I got to meet with Tieto and Logica to understand their priorities to meet the requirements from this sector in the future.

Meeting with Commaxx, a Value Added Distributor (VAD), gave me great insight into how their services on licensing and solution consulting provide added value to their resellers and in the end, to the public sector customers. The VAD channel holds great opportunities for the broad distribution of complex solutions, and I expect that we will see a significant development in this channel as it matures.

I feel fortunate to be able to work with these partners on their solutions, and I am looking forward to seeing many of these solutions adopted by the public sector soon and to share them with you in future blogs. But great solutions exist already today, and you’ll find many of them described in our partner and customer magazine, Touch.

I have now return energized from this summit, feeling very enthusiastic about the great possibilities that Microsoft and our partners can jointly offer the public sector in the EMEA region. I look forward to highlighting more details of our public sector partners and solutions in future blogs and if you’re working with a great Microsoft partner with an exciting solution, do tell me about them and I can spread the word.

About the Author

Per is responsible for driving the public sector partner strategy execution across Europe, Middle East and Africa, working closely with partners across the region to align industry solutions with Microsoft strategies and customer requirements.